European University Association reports how universities contribute to ERA

To complement the ERA Progress Report 2014, the European University Association (EUA) has published further details of its recent ERA-related activities which highlight the contribution of universities to achieving the ERA goals.

EUA’s report outlines the main activities by EUA and its university members, structured around the five ERA priorities. It also highlights a series of key messages from EUA’s perspective for future ERA progress. For example, EUA stresses that the development of the European Research Area (ERA) has to go hand in hand with that of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA); and that a "right balance of autonomy and accountability is essential for universities to be successful and competitive in the global higher education and research environment”.

EUA welcomes the inclusion of the ERA process in the European Semester, and the recently created ERA Monitoring Mechanism. Looking forward, EUA believes it will now be important to reflect on the results of the ERA Progress Report as well as on how to further contribute to the development of the ERA Monitoring Mechanism in order to track progress effectively and define the most important next steps for the ERA.